Nicolas Cage's Religious Horror Movie Is Less Extreme as It Sounds
The acclaimed actor is likely the perfect choice for a audacious scary movie about the biblical figure, though not for the causes certain fans could guess. Truthfully, the star does not even act as Jesus in the new film: the part he plays is credited merely as The Carpenter. He is positioned as a father figure of this tale, attempting to keep his religious convictions as the teenage character (played by the young actor), their teenage adopted son, starts to show supernatural abilities. The reason it's challenging to picture a different prominent performer in this role is that while the role is burdened with various trials, Nicolas Cage appears nearly emotionally certain that the murky, somber little movie is a valuable project.
Cage's Recent Career Choices
Cage has been using those years more judiciously lately. He yet does additional projects than most casual fans will ever see — for example, were you informed that the man has completed a trio of distinct frontier films over the last few years? — yet he also mixes in prestige independent films for example one recent hit, another notable movie, and a further title. This new film seems like in that category, in that it’s genre-adjacent, likely to stir debate, and takes a campy-sounding description with gravity.
Movie's Plot and Direction
Regrettably, writer-director the director does not justify the audience's focus. The Carpenter’s Son starts from a compellingly nomadic place, marketed as inspired by an obscure religious text about the early years of Jesus. Cage's character, the maternal figure, and their son relocate constantly, anxious of doctrinal intolerance or distrust about their son's mysterious gifts. “Disaster trails us,” The Carpenter gloomily remarks. This persists as evil influences attack the family at their new home, getting a jump-start on the well-known scriptural test for the son.
Occasionally, the film echoes an Exorcist-style horror film, but not one of the main figures are directly possessed. On the contrary, they grow progressively isolated from one another, when these powers infect a local young woman (the actress, named an outsider) that The Boy forms a relationship with, and gives all troubling visions of a bleak destiny. The Carpenter especially grapples with his role in the narrative, at times scolding the boy who mystifies him.
Discussion and Caution
The content is apt to stir disagreement, and the director treats it with a lot of delicacy — too much, perhaps. The idea of a teenage boy facing his future martyrdom and tempted by dark influences is certainly scary, but the filmmaker could be cautious about looking exploitative and eager to telegraph his aims, therefore he regularly retreats into gloomily threatening filming. The figures continually reflect — FKA Twigs, who demonstrated notable talent in another movie, surprisingly — cedes her acting to her character's costume, sometimes broken up by several gnarly horror imagery.
The Star's Portrayal and Film's Flaws
Simultaneously, the actor toy with just the sort of exaggerated performance that those who enjoy his campier roles might be looking for. An instance (also included) in the trailer where he loses control and yells “I’ve lost my faith!” When this sort of theatrical release is part of your Jesus-themed horror movie, maybe a more brazenly silly method would take better advantage of Cage’s willingness to go over the top as required. On the other hand, The Carpenter’s Son more closely resembles the weaker straight-to-DVD films he starred in through much of the 2010s — apart from the B-movies instead the dramas and ghost stories that often seem intriguing, and frequently include several notable memorable scenes, but ultimately feel like, frankly, cheap home video fare.
Truthfully, a number of those, while less ambitious, were more entertaining overall. At this point I need to break my personal rule, not faith-based but career-related: Previously, a respected mentor persuaded me to banish descriptive terms like “boring” or “dull” from my film-criticism vocabulary. These phrases express scant except a subjective and broadly stated lack of patience, disengaging from the task of vividly conveying the mental and sensation of seeing an individual production. It's challenging to express monotony without sounding boring personally. It’s no more expressive as calling a movie “interesting.” “Elaborate,” that is.
However, I admit, I felt uninterested throughout the film. In its defense, it is a religious style of stultification, not for The Carpenter’s Son is preachy, but because it requires a kind of obedient endurance to view it. At some point early on, this feature enters a repetitive rhythm of simmering distress, and fails to
